Wednesday, 14 July 2010
This year marks the hundredth anniversary of one of the great events in modern history. On November 20th of 1910 Francisco I. Madero denounced the electoral fraud perpetrated by President Díaz and called for a national insurrection on 20 November 1910. This marked the beginning of the Mexican Revolution. Today, the conditions have matured for another revolution, this time with a mighty proletariat at its head.
Read the rest here.
RENEGADE EYE
24 comments:
The inability to smash the bourgeois state was not the fault of the Zapatista peasants. The Mexican organized working class (Casa de Oberos?) were tricked into supporting Carranza against the peasants and so fought along side the liberals against the insurgents. By the time the workers figured out they had been had, it was too late. As for the snide remarks about anarchists, the Magon Brothers were among the most important leaders of the revolution and always sought worker-peasant unity.
By forming the Mexican Liberal Party they realized the necessity of a beginning phase of bourgeois democracy, (the 1906 PLM programme)which when the the working masses were aroused would then be turned in a socialist direction. And as it happened when the masses became involved the PLM forces under the leadership of the Magons switched from a liberal to a communist programme. (1911 "Land and Liberty" Manifesto)
Alan Woods' account of the historical aspects of the 1910 Mexican Revolution is interesting.
He should, however, stick to the past and avoid describing the present and future. He's really dreaming up a socialist's wishlist which is far removed from reality. The left was weakened considerably in the last election and Felipe Calderon, with the solid backing of PAN, looks good to go for his next term in 2012.
Also this Today, the conditions have matured for another revolution, this time with a mighty proletariat at its head.
That "mighty proletariat" is now mainly in the US of A where they have improved their living condition many-fold.
Mexico has always been a kind of peasant country, poor, backward, mostly illiterate, and racist. To this day, its ruled-not led, but ruled-by a Spanish descended white minority, which means its a kind of apartheid country. That's something you never see pointed out but rarely.
I don't care, literally, how they run things there, but when that same white minority manipulates their relationship with this country, in an effort to facilitate the mass migration of its majority Indian and mixed populations to come here to more or less take them off their hands, I take great exception to it.
One thing you will never see mentioned in the mainstream press is the fact that there are certain areas of Arizona that are no-go areas. In fact, the amount of land area controlled by Mexican gangs in Arizona is roughly the equivalent of four Central Parks.
That is completely unacceptable. It's time all the illegals were rounded up and sent back. I don't care if anybody considers it a racist policy. I consider it a pro-American policy, and if it takes a military coup to accomplish it, or a mere confederation of states getting together and declaring in no uncertain terms, screw the federal government, screw the federal courts, enough is enough-so be it.
Once they are back in Mexico then again, I don't care what kind of government they have. They can make all their government decisions based on divining the entrails of chickens for all I care. Just get the hell back there and do whatever.
All that being said, until and unless they recognize the rights of all their citizens, white, mixed, and Indian, they are going to remain what they've always been-a backward peasant country who's main industry is tourism to beaches and to places from the long-ago past representing a culture they will never come close to equaling in their wildest dreams. Once the oil is drained dry, that will be what they're left with. That and tequila. Good luck with that.
Of course, there is a way they could become a prosperous country. They can follow the model of the US prior to the New Deal, with a few common sense regulations of businesses in addition to that. If they do that, and recognize the rights of their citizens, they have enough natural resources they can do fairly well, maybe even very well.
The Zapitistas, if they won out in the end, would snatch up white properties, dole them out to a few high placed supporters, establish some kind of socialist government no doubt. And at the end of the day, Mexico would still be what its always been and probably always will be-a poverty-stricken shit hole of a country.
I'd say that any class is susceptible to manipulation and deception.
A good way for the United States to foment revolution in Mexico would be to deport 11,000,000 people and seal our borders. I leave to everyone else to debate about how pro-American that is.
The article's view of the Continental Army is somewhat romantic. Plagued with desertions and attrition due to refusal to reenlist, the Army was down to 1,200 effectives when Washington crossed the Delaware. Had he met with defeat at Trenton or Princeton, the remainder of the army would have melted away, its revolutionary ardor snuffed out by defeat.
As it was, the Continental Army rarely won in the field. Washington's genius was strategic, not tactical: By holding the army together and running away to fight another day, he rendered pyrrhic the British victories and bought time for the triumphs at Trenton, Princeton, Saratoga and Yorktown. Even so, without French intervention, the Revolutionary War could well have dragged on for years to a much different conclusion.
I'll reply tomorrow night (Sunday).
Larry G: I've been uncomfortable with Alan's writing on anarchism. I think you should write Alan and explain the problem of bunching together every anarchist.
Roman: A big part of the Mexican economy is $$, from relatives abroad. With the crisis as bad as it's, people have second thoughts about coming to the US.
Calderon as the article says, doesn't have latitude like previous leaders. I think the PRD will win next time.
I didn't cross the border, the border crossed me.
Pagan: It's absurd to use words like apartheid talking about Mexico.
Conservatives don't understand or care about the effects of what they say. Majpr disruption in Mexico, could carry over all of Central America.
Citizen K: I'm influenced by Gore Vidal's writing on Washington in Burr.
You're darn right mass deportations could spark revolution.
"It's absurd to use words like apartheid talking about Mexico."
You mean it's absurd to describe the Mexican system like it really is?
"Conservatives don't understand or care about the effects of what they say."
You mean like telling the truth about things like Mexican apartheid?
Pagan, you have to differentiate between your opinion and fact. Your rebuttal to Ren's dismissal of your idea consists of you going: "no, I am right".
Opinions are all well and good but shouting back and forth over the fence is a pointless zero-sum game.
Apartheid was formalized in South Africa in the late 1940s, because black workers were doing skilled labor, and were realizing their power in the economy. They were unionizing and getting organized. That is different than ethnic discrimination. South Africa was different than Mexico or Palestine.
Palestine is a better example, and even that isn't apartheid.
Israel is well on the way to a policy of apartheid, though.
The inadvertent role played by the U.S. in relieving political pressure in Mexico by absorbing 10-20% of its population as undocumented workers is not well understood. Anyone who thinks the border is rough place now should try rounding up 11-20,000,000 people and sending them south. It would be anarchy.
I always thought apartheid was a minority ruling over a majority. The Spartans did it to the Helots, who outnumbered them at least ten to one. I don't know what the percentage is of Mexicans of white Spanish descent is to Mexicans of Indian or mixed descent, but I know the Indian/mixed makes up a sizable majority.
Yet, the vast majority of the wealth of the country is concentrated in the hands of the whites. If that is systemic to Mexico, and the whites provide no economic opportunities to most of the majority aside from unskilled labor and agricultural and seasonal work, then that would at least be oppressive.
SO I guess it depends on the availability of economic and educational opportunities, but on the surface at least it seems pretty repressive to me.
No Pagan, as Ren pointed out, Apartheid was a specific form of such domination, not a synonym for domination.
I do agree on the racist nature of Latin American ruling classes and that this racism has a legitimacy among the so-called middle classes that we haven't see here in North America in 45 years. Imagine if the Teabaggers were openly calling Obama a nigger or a monkey. This is what they openly call Chavez.
Gambone, why did you bring that into it? What does calling Obama names have to do with any of this? I never called him anything like that, if that's what you're getting at. If not, that sure did come in from out of left field. The Tea-Party and others criticize Obama for the same reasons they criticized Clinton, the Kennedy's, Carter, and Democrat politicians in general. Bloated government, high taxes, oppressive regulations, everything you as an anarchist should be against your own self. Deficits, the debt, etc.
But okay, suppose they did do that, or some of them have. I guess that would be the same as if we were to imagine leftists were to call Bush Bush$Hitler, The Chimp, Chimpy MacFlightsuit, the Shrub, and all those other terms of endearment I heard non-stop for eight years. And beyond.
As for Chavez, I used to-very stupidly-give him the benefit of the doubt. I held my breath and counted to a hundred a few times, but I still did it. He just finally went too far. I'm glad he did, because I was starting to get really sick and tired of deluding myself.
But back to my main point, whether you call it apartheid or not is kind of irrelevant. The main point is, if the working class and poor peasants of Mexico were given access to educational and employment opportunities outside of agriculture and unskilled labor for low wages, they would have no reason to come here, and they could build their own country and wouldn't need our help after so long. Well, they wouldn't be dependent on us, put it that way.
Of course, I'm sure we'll disagree as to what kind of system they should implement. I'm all for letting them work that out on their own, so long as they can live with the consequences.
Daniel H-G: Having visited South Africa, you know its not Mexico.
Pagan: There are problems when you can't differentiate prejudice from apartheid. Mexico has a corrupt, Bonapartist like government; but its not apartheid. If you use imprecise language, you come to imprecise conclusions.
The US isn't fascist, and Bush wasn't a fascist. Emotionally the liberals felt that way, but truthfully fascism never occurred in a country with a working class majority. It is also an undesirable way to govern due to inefficiency and cost. Democracy is less expensive.
Larry G: On South American TV it seems everyone is blond.
In Oliver Stone's movie, they said the Bolivarian presidents look like the people.
Citizen K: Interesting that the Pentagon helped write "The Dream Act." The idea being to get immigrants into the army.
Obama's whole outlook is about not causing changes in balance of forces around the world. A major disruption of Mexico, could reverberate around the world.
I never called Bush a fascist, and I think people should use such labels judiciously. I do believe that Cheney has fascist sympathies, at a minimum.
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Ren:
Indeed I do know it is not Mexico, I also think that Apartheid came about not because of unionised labour but because of deep-set racist ideology of non-white as lesser human.
I also must say that the 'thing' the anon has built is pretty weird, I think it is supposed to be the twin towers but I could be wrong.
Pagan, you have completely missed the point. Man are you defensive! Read what I wrote again, I am showing how overt the racism is in South America, how the Teabaggers etc couldn't carry on the way the SA right does. Sheesh!
Oh, okay Gambone, I get you now. My apologies.
You said imagine if the "Teabaggers" were OPENLY calling Obama those names, not that the "Teabaggers" were calling Obama those names.
At least, not "openly". I guess you never can tell about those "Teabaggers", though.
Citizen K: Fascism never occurred in a country, where the majority of people are working class.
I think Cheney is too secretive to be a fascist. Fascism is based on mobs of middle class and lumpen.
Daniel H-G: Read Chapter 1.
Anonymous: My comment is anonymous.
Pagan: In South America, the media figures look European for the most part.
Larry G: I agree.
Chapter 1 from a Marxist website about how cool Marxism is.
I know people who worked within the struggle, this interpretation of events is not accurate.
Apartheid was not about some anti-Marxism movement, it was racial, although there is no arguing that some of the opposition to Apartheid draped itself in Marxism and that Marxism played a crucial part in the ANC.
Apartheid was formalized in the late 1940s, for cheap labor for expansion. It's more than prejudicial ideas.
It may be more than racial prejudice but that was it's core and driving force behind all the decision making.
Any distraction away from its racial motivation is a wee bit dangerous, in that is waters down the bigotry that still wracks South Africa now.
Back to Alan's Mexican revolution story:
It isn't quite correct that everything ended with Zapata's death. In fact, the Morelos armies stayed mobilized and put Obregón into power in exchange for a legalization of their land reform - which they got. They also got another reformist government into power ten years later, which extended the land reform over much of Mexico.
This wasn't the whole earth, nor was it a "full victory" - whatever this is. It was a great step forward for those who effected it.
But compare with the Russian case, which Alan seems to support against the Mexican. What did the peasants get there? They got forced collectivization, most of their property seized by the state, and a kind of serfdom.
And while the Russian people is utterly broken, politically, the Mexicans go on struggling politically for a better future, apparently in full spirits.
So if you compare Mexico's and Russia's revolutions, there isn't a grain of doubt about which was most successful in the long run.
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